>> Precisely because we know the Education Mafia abuse >> the statistics, I have long maintained that, bad as >> the numbers are (and they are very bad), reality is >> very much worse.

>I agree and I think that is why this can't really last. >We have a few things to watch over the next couple of >decades.

And I agree things cannot go on this way forever. The crash is coming. The only question is: how bad will it be? I am hoping for a softer landing, if possible.

History is not on our side. When a major social institution fails, the results are usually grisly. Some years ago, in another education forum, I wrote a longer essay on this point, but allow me one quick example, now.

The French Army between the wars was, in fact, an excellent institution in the sense that they had men who were willing and able to fight. Furthermore, the men were well armed and well trained. French artillery had been first quality since Charles VIII, and French tanks were as good as any, at the time. The problem was French leadership.

Many people at the time perfectly understood the desperate need to reform French military leadership, and they tried very hard. In his efforts at reform, for instance, de Gaulle made so many enemies that the generals made him inspector of fortresses---a fate worse than death for a field officer.

In the end, de Gaulle and his like-minded officers and sympathetic politicans failed to reform the army, the Germans came, and France was erased as a sovereign state.

It does not get worse than that.

The collapse of public education may not be as dramatic as foreign tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, but I think the consequences can be plenty bad. How bad? I hope never to find out, but there are already premonitions,http://youtu.be/4p4-vPrcDBo